


The Shining Gates

by Measured_Words



Category: Changeling: the Dreaming
Genre: #Yulechat Challenge 2011, Curses, Fae & Fairies, Gen, Quest, Regency, Siblings, Yuletide, Yuletide 2011
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-18
Updated: 2011-12-18
Packaged: 2017-10-27 12:23:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/295827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Measured_Words/pseuds/Measured_Words
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The world is a changing place in the early nineteenth-century.  The world struggles against the encroaching banality of industry, but the Dreaming has its own dangers - quests and costs and legacies inherited from the Age of Wonder when the Sidhe withdrew from the world.</p><p>The Lord of Kelham Manor calls an outsider to help him find a stolen treasure, hoping to find a solution to a larger problem at an old freehold he has found and claimed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Shining Gates

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kalirush](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalirush/gifts).



> Thank you to my betas: Curtana, Stars, and inforpenny! Thanks always to/yuletide chat and the hippos of looove!
> 
> I hope that you enjoy the story! I saw the request for commoner focus and my brain went to 'Interregnum fic!' and this is how it all played out :D Possibly also I had been reading too many regency period stories right before Yuletide, so if this wasn't quite what you were looking for, I hope you will forgive me.
> 
> I was excited to see Changeling: the Dreaming nominated - I've also played it for years and years. I was quite pleased to get matched to it, so thank you for the chance to play a little bit in this world again!

It was not quite a hush that fell across the room when the stranger entered, but heads did turn, and disapproving murmurs passed through the assembled guests. He did not seem to pay them heed – or indeed even to acknowledge the worthiest of peers, instead making his way intently toward a small assembly across the room. His approach was noted by a pair of black eyes very like his own, whose owner turned and whispered to her taller companion.

“Dyson, my brother comes.”

“What, here?”

“Yes, my lord…”

There was time to say little else before they were joined by this visitor. His glance drank in the trio before him, settling briefly with a flicker of only faint recognition on the dark-eyed woman who claimed to be his relation and coming to rest on the gentleman. This man was dressed, from the waist up, in the highest of fashions, with a well-tailored coat and a cascade of lace at his throat. From the waist down, he seemed to wear nothing at all save the thick russet hair of his goat-like legs. His companions appeared equally fantastical. The newcomer and his sister were both as dark of hair as of eye, their skin pale and shadowed about the eyes and mouth as though their features were attempting to sink in on themselves. There was a general similarity of appearance beyond that which spoke of their familial ties, though she may have been a hair taller, or perhaps the tight lacings of her mourning dress forced her to hold herself straighter. Her brother was sharply dressed, though his clothes were out of style and showed greater signs of wear than could be considered proper in high company. The last of the gathered, silent so far, was a slight woman with skin milk-white, marred by touches of red on her nose that spiralled across her cheeks and chin. Her hair was likewise pure white (by nature rather than powder or wig), though fashionably curled and bound.

“You summoned me,” the newcomer addressed the Satyr, his voice quiet but intense.

“So I did, sir!” Dyson grinned welcomingly, but looked to the sister. “Miss Hyde led me to believe we should not expect you so soon – I’m afraid this is no time or place for business.”

“Indeed – my brother forgets himself and his manners.” She placed a hand on his arm to draw his attention, and his brow creased as he seemed to try and focus on her instead. “You surely must be tired, and overwhelmed from your travels. Come, and I will bring you somewhere you can rest…” She made as though to draw him away. Receiving an encouraging nod from Dyson, he followed without protest or further comment.

“And you call her strange,” his remaining companion commented, “Mark me – she’s scheming something, and it’s arsed as like to bedevil us.”

He shrugged carelessly. “It could be, Maggie, but if her scheming serves me I’m in for the adventure.”

“That’s easily spoken.”

“So it is, and so is – shall we dance? This is a concern for some other time. For now I’d rather make merry, and draw this company a distraction from that strange intrusion. What say you, my dear?”

Maggie shrugged, glancing after the two Sluagh with an almost wistful glace. “Ach, bloody merry ‘t’ll be then, an’ bugger the rest.”

Miss Hyde drew her brother outside, beyond the gaze of other guests. She could see his mind was still touched by his long travels in the Dreaming, and wondered how the revellers within might sleep that night. It was in his nature to be gripped by these little fits of bedlam, and over the long years she’d grown accustomed to sorting him out, as it suited her. She headed to the stables, where she could hear another revel of sorts ongoing, and rapped three times at the door. Voices within complained of the interruption, muttered that they’d best hide their gaming or be in for a thrashing from their host. Another more familiar voice made reassurances as he approached the door.

“Oh what brave lads you are, fearing a thrashing for tossing the dice, is it? Think m'lord is out spying on us, is he, with a house full of modish guests inside? I’m sure it's him out there right now, knocking right politely! Let’s have a look shall we?”

The speaker drew open the stable door a hair, then grinned. “Oh what a lovely face you have, m'lord Weston! But I think you’ve lost weight, and where are your whiskers?” He tossed a chuckle back over his shoulder. “There lads, it’s only my lady Hyde, see, and no trouble at all, I’m sure.” The disgruntled muttering died down, and the speaker stepped outside. He was dressed in servant’s garb, and indeed he played the role of Lord Dyson’s footman and groom when the motley presented themselves in society. His cap concealed his hare’s ears, but his face and teeth were markedly long, and his person covered in soft downy fur.

Miss Hyde frowned. “Will, I need you to stow my brother someplace safe.” She nodded to him, though he only seemed half aware of the world around him. “Take this, and keep a watch on him.” Reaching in to a small hand bag she’d produced from her skirts, she carefully withdrew a parcel of thick leather and passed it to him gingerly. “Have a care with it.”

“Aye miss.” The Pooka’s eyes went wide. “Indeed if I have one care, I’ll have a hundred! What are you doing with such a thing?”

“Don’t trouble yourself on that account – just see to him. There’s a place beneath the carriage house that will serve.”

“Well, who am I to question, miss. You know your business, I’m sure.” He turned his attention to the brother, noting the unfocused gaze and the intense set look of his countenance. “Come along then lad, I can just about see the trouble you’ll be if I can’t get you sorted.”

Miss Hyde nodded then, taking her brother in hand and turning his face to meet hers. “Go with Will,” she spoke in her hushed tones. “Rest yourself. We’ll be leaving in the morning, I expect, with Lord Dyson – it’s he who summoned you. Now go on.” She set them off together and returned to the party within.

Will led her brother – he hadn’t been given a name, but somehow ‘Mr. Hyde’ seemed to ill-suit him – towards the carriage house. In the end it was her companion that found the loose boards that covered the hollow beneath where some animal had dug a burrow and since abandoned it. Before he left the young man to slip into this cozy little garret, he tossed in the small bundle Miss Hyde had given him, and buried it in a scatter of hay. “You sleep tight then, lad, and no plaguing the rest of us with wild dreams. Need anything more? A bite to eat, as it were?” He grinned widely at his joke, though his audience simply shook his head. “Right, sour milk and spiders it is, and I’ll see you in the morning.” Will tipped his cap at his charge and, seeing him thus secured, set off back to his fellows and their gaming.

 

The night did bring queer dreams to the more sensitive – strange seas with iceberg fortresses inhabited by fantastical flying beasts, winding paths through shifting, haunted forests of grey trees and ghosts, and great shining gates of a beauty so austere that the dreamers could not pain themselves to recall them in the morning, lest they be plagued for the rest of their day with an overwhelming feeling of loss.

The small party of kithain, then, were feeling out of sorts save for Dyson, who hadn’t deigned to sleep at all. After breaking fast with his host on a feast of ham, eggs and fresh trout from the stock pond, he seemed fully refreshed, and chuckled at the unsettled bunch who greeted him at the inn in town. Their newest addition seemed no more rested than the others, though he did seem more aware of his surroundings, and himself. When Dyson joined them, he was conferring in hushed tones with his sister.

“Good morning!” The Satyr bellowed, grinning again at the wincing his boisterous greeting caused to pass through his companions.

“The devil take you, an’ your good mornin’,” Maggie muttered with a dark look.

“The devil’d need to know how to hold his punch better than you, my dear, if he wants to be taking me off anywhere.” He chuckled, looking around the small assembly. “Not quite all here?”

“I expect Gerry’s seeing to the horses, sir.” Will winked at Dyson. “You know what a care he has for those beasts of yours.”

The Satyr’s broad grin turned briefly lascivious. “It’s well that someone should see to my interests. I hope your brother might be so obliging, Miss Hyde.”

Maggie made a most unladylike gesture, but Miss Hyde smiled demurely and ignored the innuendo. “There is none can match his skill in his field, as I have told you.”

The man in question stepped forward and offered the Satyr his hand. He looked fairly well groomed for one who had slept poorly in a hole beneath a carriage house, but there was faint musty odour that clung either to him or his clothes. His eyes, rather than the rest of him, were what drew Dyson’s attention. Cleared of the glazed look of the night before, his gaze was sharp, discerning, and almost unsettling. His attention seemed to shift rapidly from detail to detail, as though he was absorbing everything for later recollection and examination.

“My apologies, my lord, for my unacceptable rudeness last night. I fear I forgot myself.”

Dyson took the extended hand. “I rather think you did, though I’m glad to see you are with us more presently this morning.”

“My lord Dyson,” Miss Hyde put in, slipping up beside them, “May I then present my brother, Elias…Seeger.” A look passed between the siblings, and both seemed to shrug without moving. Dyson paused for a moment, then chucked again.

“Well I suppose that will do – Mr. Seeger then, freshly arrived from abroad. Very well. And here comes Gerry with our horses. Give him a hand Will.”

Unlike the others present, the young man approaching the group with two saddled thoroughbreds appeared entirely human. He paused to give Mr. Seeger a quick examination. Apparently satisfied with what he saw, he turned his attention to the Satyr.

“They’ll be pulling up the carriage shortly, but I thought I might ride out with you.”

“I think it best you sit with the ladies, I’m afraid.” His look softened when he caught a flash of frustration in the other man’s eye, and he smiled promisingly as he mounted. “We’ll have our time back at the manor, Gerry, but I have matters to discuss with Mr. Seeger along the way.”

Gerry nodded, giving the new Sluagh another appraising look as he passed him the bridle. The horse snorted gently. “I hope you don’t ride so light as you look, sir.”

Seeger gave him a gracious nod. “I ride well enough to find my way, Mr. Fitzgerald.”

Gerry gave him another long look at this strange pronouncement before helping his sister and Miss Hyde into the carriage that the stable boys had brought up, seating himself with them while Will took the reins. In short order they were off down the road out into the country.

There were some others passing along on the road from Leeds, but the traffic thinned an hour or so out of the city. Dyson slowed his horse to fall back with the Sluagh, who seemed intently focused on the road ahead. What little Miss Hyde had told him about her brother had left him curious on a number of fronts. “It’s a fine morning for riding, isn’t it?”

The other man made some answer, but the quiet words were lost to the sound of the carriage rattling before them. Dyson laughed, and reigned up along the side of the track. “We can catch them up shortly I expect – draw off with me.” He turned his horse down a little lane between the hedgerows and rode on a ways until the sounds of the road noises seemed sufficiently dampened. The Sluagh followed. “Spend a poor night did you? You seem a bit out of sorts.”

“A headache, that is all. My sister though it best to send me to rest with an iron coin… I would not say it was the wrong thing to do.”

“No, but what rough care! But you would know better than I – I’ve not done much travelling in those lands. I find this world quite fantastic enough for me!” Dyson grinned, but his good cheer was wasted on his companion. “Now, I don’t mean to let the others get too far ahead, but I understand it’s better to formalize this bit of business quickly. Your sister told me that much at least.”

The other man nodded, and a fire seemed to flash in his dark eyes. “Yes – you summoned me.”

“Indeed, sir. I had something taken from me some few days ago, and I would like it recovered, on a number of accounts. Do you require further details?”

“I only need know what you seek.”

“Very well then – a tale for another time perhaps. I lost a set of dice, enchanted so that those familiar with their quirks can rely on them rolling whatever numbers they should chose. A cheap trick perhaps, but I have my reasons for valuing them. They were stolen, though I’m sure the little thief knows not what a treasure she has.”

“How should I know them?”

“They look very much like any other dice, though of course they are glamoured. They are carved bone, of a common size, with the numbers enamelled, one in red, the other in black.”

Mr. Seeger nodded, his eyes closed for a moment as though he were picturing the set. “Tell me of this thief.”

“Not much to say on that front, I’m afraid. I met the girl at a gambling hall, and she invited me to visit with her… She robbed me. A common enough story, and as great as fool I feel, I might have thought it a fair exchange had she left her pilfering to my pocketbook.”

“Where was this hall?”

“In Manchester, of all places. Terrible city – take care when you head there, the place is full of the dullness of industry. There’s few enough can see any charm in it – Maggie’s one, though she perverts their drudgery to her own wild imaginings. Your sister has her building something now, and it was an errand to that end that brought me to the place. I think that is why she had you come, perhaps. Or told me what to do… But the place was a little hole on Liverpool Street, the Cuckoo’s Clutch or some such name. I was directed there by an acquaintance, and gather it is well enough known to the locals. It should not prove hard to find. The minx told me she was called Caroline, though it seems doubtful. I hope you will not think ill of me if I say she resembled your sister in some manner – slight and dark of hair and eye, at least, though she was not one of our kind.”

Mr. Seeger seemed to take all of this in stride, frowning only slightly at Dyson’s description of Caroline. He looked to be concentrating, or intent on something quite distant on the horizon. “Would you have me attend on you further?”

“Do you mean to set out at once? Surely Miss Hyde would think poorly of us both. She seemed quite keen to see you.”

“We have spoken some, and may do so again when I return.”

“It is only manners, then, that would have me insist on you coming to the manor before proceeding, and you may find that we don’t stand much on manners when in our own company. So, sir, I leave it to you. If it perturbs you to hold back from your quest, then proceed as you see best.”

He nodded curtly. “I shall find you again once I have recovered them.”

“Then I wish you luck, Mr. Seeger, and shall wait on your return.” Dyson turned his horse’s head back to the main road, spurring the animal on to a faster pace to catch the carriage. Seeger watched him for a brief moment before steering towards the south, jumping the hedge and setting out through the fields.

The carriage’s pace had slowed, and it was easy for the Satyr to catch up. Will looked over as he drew alongside. “Chased ‘im off already, did you? Well good job, he looked like trouble. I imagine his sister won’t thank you… Probably looking forward to showing him the lovely clutch of rats who’ve been nesting in the pantry.”

“She’ll have the chance soon enough – unless you surprise us by seeing to your home tasks and ridding us of the noxious vermin. Lady Hyde can take any pets somewhere they’ll do less harm and not scare the maids.”

“And oh, what a surprise that would be!” The Pooka grinned over at Dyson, snapping the reigns to urge the horses onward and calling back for his passengers to mind themselves.

 

His head was still pounding, but there was another tension that eased inside his mind once he’d collected the details of his task. Seek urged his horse more quickly in the direction of his quest, heedless of the route unless it turned impassable. The animal seemed confused or uncertain at first at such use, unaccustomed to the strange manner of its rider. But it became absorbed by its rider’s focused intent, or found its own exhilaration in the unexpected exercise, and seemed to fly across the countryside. They made good time until they reached the southern road that would take them into the city.

He was the best, as his sister had claimed. An errand such as Dyson had set him was a trivial matter, and there was no real urgency to it. The feeling would burn itself out, he hoped, by the time he reached the city, and he could attend the appointed task with more care. The trick Hide had played on him last night had helped to expunge the excess of glamour he’d carried with him from the Dreaming, but he still felt he had energy to spare.

As he approached closer, he could sense that the city bore its own strange energy. There was conflict here, between drudgery and dreams, between industry and art. The air was charged with tension as dreamers fought against the inevitable future. Industry made promises in Manchester, and those who listened could not see that the shine of the proffered coin was nothing more than fool’s gold. Machines that spun begat machines that wove, but those who marvelled at the technology had yet to learn the cost of this progress. The voices of artists who sought to protect their crafts joined in howls of frustration, but they were not heard over the Machine. They fought how they could, burning mills, breaking down their enemies, but Industry meant money, and this set the world against them. Banality hadn’t won yet perhaps, but as the desperate dreams turned more violent, they became harder and harder for others to grasp.

Seek had a sense of this conflict, though he did not feel it was an immediate concern. The world was ever changing; there were few constants. The quest was one – the pressing need to search, to find. Without direction he turned restless, his drive pushing him to pursue the impossible. He couldn’t fight it, only redirect, and never towards his own goals. He was an instrument. It was best not to consider the matter further. It was afternoon by the time he entered the city proper and found an inn of good standing that would care for Dyson’s horse while he went about his business. He had no coin on him now, but it would be easy enough to find along the way. Money rarely concerned him – something those who tried to employ him often found difficult to grasp.

As Dyson had said, it was not hard to track down the Cuckoo’s Clutch. It had the appearance of an inn, and he decided to engage space there, for convenience. He withdrew to one corner of the common room to watch the other patrons and wait. There were many games of cards ongoing – whist and piquet, primarily. The place was not as elegant as the private clubs and preserved the unsavoury atmosphere those establishments sought to eliminate, as though good breeding were proof against roguery. Along with these were several games of dice, and he paid especial attention to these. The main game was hazard – Dyson’s dice could have won small fortunes in that room, let alone in more refined company with their more generous wagers.

The dice were lacking, as was the girl. The only women he noted at all were servants of the house, and they seemed occupied with their tasks, interacting little with those who’d come to drink or gamble. As the hours passed, only those blessed by fortune remained at the tables, and some few had come and gone. The crowd was beginning to increase, and some of the patrons now arriving brought with them women of questionable character. Seek sat and watched – no one in the room took notice of him.

The evening wore on in this manner, and Seek began to contemplate what other measures he might need to employ – querying the staff, perhaps, about regular (or at last occasional local) patrons, and what women might regularly pursue their trades and schemes from the hall. As he considered which path to follow, a group of women entered, one of whom seemed to fit better Dyson’s loose description of the girl, Caroline. She was tall and slim, with black hair and eyes, dressed in a green frock of a cut that would not be considered in the least bit proper by moddish society. She caught the eye of several gentlemen – all those he’d marked as being from out of town. Those he’d deemed more local seemed to ignore her for the most part. After making the rounds of several interested parties she settled her attentions on a single target, who seemed to be basking in fortune’s favour at one of the piquet tables.

It was loud, and despite the acuteness of his senses he had a difficult time hearing what was being said between the couple. Evidently she managed to convince her mark to leave before his luck had run out, likely to see more private entertainment elsewhere. He summoned the innkeeper, who frowned during the exchange but called a servant to see them taken off upstairs. Seek had made a circuit of the place earlier, and suspected they had drawn off to one of the few private room or parlours available for hire. It suited him fine, and he made his own more subtle withdrawal from the common room.

There was more waiting to do now – the man was already quite drunk, and he saw a servant shuffle off with another bottle of spirits. Once he passed out, ‘Caroline’ would make her move: robbing him of anything he carried of value, and slipping away back to her own hovel. Seek placed himself in the corridor, squeezing into a tight spot beside a little cupboard where his presence was unlikely to be remarked. An hour or so later, his quarry presented herself. He waited until she passed into the street, then turned his jacket inside-out to invoke a simple cantrip that allowed him to pass unnoticed through mortal company.

Caroline lived a fair distance away, it seemed. They walked for an hour. Her route was not indirect, though she did stop along the way at another inn to spend her night’s gains on a more substantial meal, and some more liquor for herself. Seek forced himself to be patient, despite the insistent pressure of the quest urging him onward. He could feel that he was close even before she turned in to a row of tenement buildings, heading to a small apartment in an upper storey.

It would be gratifying to simply go and retrieve what he’d come for, but he knew that without this immediate burden, the weightier pressure of his geas would fall once more upon him. A measured approach was needed – and if that was the case, then he might as well take the opportunity to do this the right way. If he would steal back from this little thief, then he should leave her something in turn. She might be a woman now, but she was at heart, he could tell, a very bad girl – the type to give her parents nightmares. And if banality was encroaching on the city then why not leave behind a reminder that there were worse things in the world than bare drudgery? Just a little fear would be good for her, he decided, and turned his attention to finding other things.

Night still clung tenaciously to the city when he returned to the tenement. The rough brick was easy enough for him to climb – he’d been on many more challenging quests through less steady terrain, and thought little of it as he pried the window open quietly. He made no attempt to hide himself as he did, knowing how he would look to any passerby – a footpad, they might presume, or a contortionist, or some malevolent spirit or devil come after one of his own. Once inside he called upon another glamour. Should she wake before he left, Caroline would see him as he was. It seemed unlikely that she would, from her loud, drink-fueled snoring, but something of his presence would colour her dreams.

With unerring precision, Seek moved to the loose floorboard where she secreted away her ill-gotten treasures. There was a pouch of coins, some rings, a silver pocketwatch, an enamelled snuff box, and a few other trinkets aside from the dice. He sighed when he held them, as the pull drew him from this quarry back again to Dyson, who had called him on this little errand. Soon enough he would be on his way – back to the inn, rather than out of the city immediately - but he had another few minutes' work here first.

Caroline awoke the next morning feeling unrested, as though some oppressive force had been stalking her in her sleep. Her mid was full of indistinct impressions of a tall, dark man – only not a man, but something else – whispering words she couldn’t make out, pointing at something, laughing in hushed tones that made the hair on her arms stand up to think of it even in the late morning light. Unable to shake her unsettled nerves, she made a thorough round of her rooms, but found nothing amiss. She felt like a young girl, frightened of monsters under the bed, but there was nothing there: she’d checked. The malaise eventually led her to look in on her treasures – she kept meaning to take her little collection to sell, but she’d come to think of them as trophies. She had enough coin for the moment that she could indulge her whimsical fantasy, even after she paid a portion of her fee to keep the owner of the Cuckoo quiet about her habits despite his disapproval.

When she removed the loose board and saw what lay in the place of her trophies, she screamed. Gone was the silver pocketwatch, the snuff box, the fine little bone dice, the jewelled signet ring, the quizzing glass she’d taken from the country gentleman last night. The assortment of items left in their place made her blood run cold: a jar of spiders, half a maggoty rat, a tattered lace handkerchief, and a coil of hemp tied in a hangman’s noose. The pouch where she’d kept her coin was still there, but the leather seemed to writhe of its own accord and she could not bring herself to reach for it. She crossed herself, though she’d not given much consideration to religion in many a year, grabbed what she could carry of her remaining belongings and left the rest behind, intending to take an immediate and extended trip to visit a long-neglected cousin in Leeds.

Seek was well on his way out of the city by that time, having left much earlier in the day. As the Satyr had warned, the atmosphere in Manchester was oppressive, and all the more so now that his impulses drew him elsewhere. There was a rising tension in the air, and the talk he heard in the streets was about riots and protests. Rich men clamoured for power, promising hope and riches, but beneath this he sensed the dying screams of dreams. If this was the modern world, he thought he would not miss it much when he withdrew again. If his sister would permit him to withdraw so soon…

 

The rest had arrived at Kelham Manor in the early afternoon, dispersing amicably to their own errands once returned. Will left Gerry with both the care of the horses and Dyson’s attentions, claiming pressing duties for the household. These would carry him to a number of the surrounding properties, where he had ingratiated himself with servants. He spun tall tales to them of the hardships of his service, the peculiar proclivities and perversions of his lord and the general terror under which his servants operated. There was not a father in the county who would think to let his daughter pass within an hour’s ride of the manor without a gentleman to escort her, and if it weren’t for the quality of the horses that came from the estate, many swore they’d have no business with the place at all.

The party who’d travelled to York were not all of the freehold’s tenants – only those who’d had business in the city. The place operated not along the ordered lines of English society, but possessed its own sense of community. Mr. (George) and Mrs. (Nanny) Hedgin, Boggans, took care of the house out of pride, and none dared cross them in household matters. They occasionally fought battles of jurisdiction in the kitchen with Brunei, the old Eshu who’d found the manor near the end of what he termed his wandering years and taken up the position of cook. Meals were served at a relaxed pace, their quality and complexity for the most part following the whimsy of their creator. Added to this small commune were a number of kinain, including many relations of the Hedgins. The formidable couple managed the staff along with the rest of the estate, leaving Dyson to his horses and to enjoy the diversions that came with the mantle of lordhood he assumed for the world beyond.

The Boggans might have despaired for the lack of company that resulted from their lord’s pariah status, save that other servants from the country viewed them as sympathetic to their own ill-use, and they were often the first to hear of scandals. As with most of their kith, they flourished on such gossip, and what they could not find out for themselves they had from Will – so it was that the servants of the shunned manor were some of the best informed in the region about the goings-on of their neighbours, while they themselves remained a mystery. Some of the smallholders had a greater sense of the matter, and muttered about the fair folk, and left out bowls of cream not intended for their cats, and didn’t raise any fuss if a fresh baked pie went missing. They knew they might awake another morning and find their cows had been milked and the butter churned for them, or their fence mended, or some other small service.

These circumstances were arranged to allow the manor’s inhabitants a fair amount of privacy. All found it to their advantage to some extent, but for some it allowed a level of freedom that would have otherwise been impossible. Maggie was one to relish this especially, as the others were content to let her tinker in one of the old barns, far away from the newer breeding stables. She’d shed her frock at the soonest opportunity, trading it for a set of man’s trousers and shirt that she covered over with a leather apron as she headed back to the workshop. Miss Hyde waited for her there, dressed the same as ever despite the Nocker’s many admonitions that such clothing was unsafe. The Sluagh had yet to catch fire or have her dress caught in the engine gears, at least, so Maggie had left off her more creative nagging.

That afternoon, she found her current employer reviewing the plans she’d drawn up, sipping tea from a cracked cup she was sure she’d seen discarded months ago. “Back off from those, ya daft bint. Y’re bloody meddlin’s trouble enough as’t’is.”

Miss Hyde smiled, slipping back. “I was simply marvelling, my dear. It is beyond me how you can translate from those to this.” She waved a hand at the wood and brass framework occupying a good amount of the floor space. It had a vague resemblance to the mechanical looms that were revolutionizing the industry in Lancashire, with extra pieces currently laid out on the long work bench. There were a fair number of strictly mechanical part of a type that might be found in the workshop of any inventor or machinist in the country – brass wheels, cranks and bands. Other aspects were pure chymistry – tubes of smoking liquid that swirled from a pale blue to deep rose and back, tooled leather fittings made of thick hide from no earthly creature, a gem of a deep iridescent purple flecked throughout with gold, a dragon’s tooth. Sheets of some strange shimmering metal were laid out in a stack, awaiting etching or cutting.

“We’ll ken if I can sort out the rest o’ this shite. Then we’ll look back to ‘em scribblins.”

“But you found what you needed in York?”

“Aye, charmed my way’n’ t’a fact’ry – couldnae stand t’ stay long. Ain’t bloody fair, I say. Someone had beautiful fuckin’ dreams t’ think o’ all that – a machine tae work for ya, tae make something o’ beauty. An’ it bloody worked. But te world is full of arses who just want order! Order everywhere, and it’s dreary, dreadful. And that’s all’t’ is now – devil machines fer makin’ order. Fuckin’ dull. Luddites ‘re fightin’ ta loose. ‘t’s shite, but least’t’is shite I can use.”

Miss Hyde nodded. This was common talk from Maggie, who liked to chatter as she worked, making a few quick sketches and punctuating her sentences with quick pencil jabs in the air. The Nocker held a special bitterness about the turn the world had taken, yearning for the past century when people made things only because they were interesting or beautiful. Her father, who’d been of the same kith, had put these ideas in her head, as well as others that set her at odds with the modern word. She felt no shame in her dress or in her tinkering, despite their impropriety. While she could have focused her creativity on more ladylike creations, she felt more at home with larger machines, and she sought to turn them to most wondrous ends. “And I as well, dear Maggie…” Taking up her teacup, the Sluagh withdrew into a cluttered nook and insinuated herself there in a position few others might have considered comfortable. “How long now, then, until you might be ready?”

“Ach. Hell with you an your ‘dear’, Miss. Is’t ‘cause yer brother’s here you’re askin’ now? Bloody devils, the two of you, all whisperin’. But it’ll be soon. Could ‘ave it ‘n a day, maybe two, now’t I ken ‘ow ‘em bloody weavers go at’it. ‘S all ‘n th’ cards.”

“So it is, then, and don’t let me keep you from it.”

Maggie grinned as she carried her sketches over to her work table and slid free one of the shimmering sheets to get to work.

She worked well into the night, too absorbed to look closely at the dinner Miss Hyde brought her, or think too hard about the sourness of the wine. Her prattle ranged from obscenities directed at her work to stories from her youth, and tales of creations gone wrong she’d had off of other Nockers whenever she’d managed to attend any of their gatherings. When it got dark she lit the lantern amplifiers she’d improvised with sheets of polished metal to reflect the meagre light of the wicks to something she could still work with. It was very late when her brother banged on door, hollering to be heard above the noise.

“Blast ya, Maggie, y’re keepin’ up half the country wi’ yer racket!”

“Blast ya to hell yourself, Gerry, I’m so bloody close!” She glared over at her brother, wiping a grimy hand across her pale forehead.

“If you’d nae work so late, Meg…” He lounged in the open doorway, and glanced over at Miss Hyde. The Sluagh had relocated her perch so that she could observe the assembly of the final components of the loom’s framework. She slid over toward the little engine that worked the bandsaw, and opened the steam release until it gradually ran out of power. Maggie glared at the two of them, but it was Miss Hyde who spoke up, her quite voice now audible in the stilling night.

“You’d take no pride in sloppy work, and redo it all tomorrow. I’ve seen you. But we have no time for it now.”

“Bugger the lot o’ you.” She sighed, and took her brother’s arm as Miss Hyde shut down the rest of the workshop and blew out the lanterns.

They lost the Sluagh somewhere in the darkness, between the barn and the manor. She had rooms there, but no one was sure she ever made use of them, or where she might keep herself otherwise. Maggie leaned on her brother’s arm. “How’s yer laird?”

“Ach.” Gerry frowned. “He’s in a mood. The bloody dice, an’ all. Doesnae wanna give ‘em up, like the rest.”

“Now ‘e bloody draws a line. Ya ken it's worth it, ‘ere? All this?” Maggie waved a hand vaguely, encompassing the grounds.

“Harder for me ta say, Meg. It suits me ‘here, an ye. Th’ ‘orses’ll last out, ‘f the rest passes. But’t mayn’t be enough tae keep folk, other’n Dyson.”

“We’ll see – so Miss Hyde says. She’s got some bloody trick to pull, I ken, wi’ me Weaver. But whae can she do?”

“I reck’n she kens something, ‘bout te place, like.”

“Aye. By Hell, we’ll see soon ‘nough, then!”

 

Seek arrived at Kelham Manor in the late morning. One of the Hedgins took his mount, and sent him to seek out Dyson at the breeding stable where the Satyr had been rubbing down one of the mares after a morning ride. He smiled broadly at his guest, but there was a tightness to his manner.

“Welcome, Mr. Seeger, to Kelham! I see your charming sister did not exaggerate your skill – you have them?”

“I do.”

“May I see them?” His eyes glinted, and his voice carried a restrained anticipation, or relief.

“See them, yes, but our bargain is not yet complete.” Seek slid his hand to the pocket of his coat, but did not withdraw them until Dyson nodded. The Satyr’s smile tightened again when he saw them, and he sighed.

“Oh, put them away then. You have done well. But tell me sir, what do you know of this place?”

Seek swept the area with his discerning gaze as he pocketed the dice, and then settled his attention back on his host. “I could relate a fair number of observations, yet I sense you speak of something more.”

“Indeed – I thought your sister may have mentioned some of the matter to you. I’m sure she knows of it, and perhaps even more than I.” When the Sluagh cocked his head inquisitively, Dyson continued. “The story most hear of me is that I won this estate at a gaming table. It’s true in some ways, but in fact I knew of it, and sought it out because I knew that it had once been a Freehold and thought it could again, with some care. The care has been more trouble than I’d counted – the Balefire is unstable, and all I can find to keep it burning is to feed it treasures. Nothing else seems to appease it. I’ve nearly drained my resources in that regard and am loathe to part with what little I have left. While others here have made some contributions… It shouldn’t fall to them any more that it has. Your sister told me something of you, and whatever her motives, it occurred that your services may be of use… I am sure you can imagine how. But the issue of price, well… I’m not sure how it might be negotiated, in the long term.”

Seek nodded slowly, considering what was being offered. He’d had arrangements in the past to work for extended periods for particular patrons, but they’d all passed. In some cases, they were simply longer-term contracts to locate and acquire a number of components for some particular project. There were a few who’d summoned him who had found ways to take advantage of him (and regretted this later). Very rarely, he’d met someone who’d sent him on errand after errand out of some sense of pity or charity he’d never quite grasped, and in time the arrangement had worn on him. This seemed different – Dyson’s need was legitimate, and the scope broad enough that he might not tire of the unaccustomed stability too soon. Was this something Hide had arranged? It was possible. She had some plan at work here, and he’d only sensed the edges of it. “I will think on it,” he answered finally. “But as for these, I have promised their price to my sister, and must speak to her.”

Dyson nodded, his smile tight once again. “Well, sir, I’m sure you can find her.”

He could – his instincts brought him out to Maggie’s workshop. The loudness was very offputting, and disrupted his considerations of Dyson’s tale and offer. The Nocker was grinding down the edges of a small metal rectangle pierced with holes. Similar pieces were stacked on the work table, though the number and placement of the holes differed. Maggie was too absorbed in her work to hear him enter, and even his sister seemed startled when he placed his hand on her arm and beckoned her away to find some place they could talk.

There was an outcropping of stone that might have once been a standing structure, and the Sluagh congregated near this, crouching in the slight shade it offered. Hide spoke first, after a critical review of her brother to assess his current state.

“You’ve seen Dyson, then?”

Seek nodded.

“Did he posit his nonsensical idea of keeping you in his employ?”

He nodded again, his eyes narrowing slightly.

“I hope you didn’t think I would have put such a notion in his head. And don’t consider that it would suit you – you would soon come to resent it, I think, seeking the marvels of dreams only to see them consumed.”

This time he sighed, still scowling. “Of course. I told him this price was yours, and I will leave the arrangements to you.”

“Very well… Though there is a place for you here. Maggie is building me a machine that will weave dreams according to an ordered design. I intend to use it here, and make sure that none will find it after, or recreate it. I’m certain she has not considered its full powers, as she is caught up in its creation. There is a story to play out here, and in its unfolding, truths to be seen.”

Hide waited until her brother again nodded his assent before pitching her voice even lower, and expanding on her scheme. Seek listened carefully to her explanations, feeling the draw of a new quest already starting to build as she laid out what was to come. He nodded once more when she finished, and stood. They parted ways then – she to lay out her terms to Dyson, and he back to the workshop.

Maggie was just finishing up one of the last punch plates, and swore when she turned to set it down and found Seek looking through the rest.

“Bugger me arse, ye gave me ‘alf a bloody fright!”

Seek gave her a little bow. The sanding belt was still running, but his quiet voice managed to carry above the residual noise. “My apologies – I thought it best not to disturb you while you were working.”

“’M still workin’,” she scowled, but flipped up her protective goggles to see better. “Where’s yer sister off tae, Mr. Seeger?”

“I believe she is discussing running the test of your machine with Lord Dyson. Are these the weaving plates?”

“Aye, they are.”

He turned the one he was handling over in his hands. The series of holes seemed random, but the word ‘pond’ was scratched into the edge. “How do you give them meaning?”

“’S impression’ble metal tae start, an te bloody array does t’ rest.” She pointed over to the other side of the shop, where the purple gem had been fixed into a clamp assembly attached to the dragon tooth. This had been drilled or filed to a point, set into a moveable arm, and aimed at another clamp that currently held a blank plate. “Ye ken direct it tae make what’ere ye ken think, but the shite thing willnae mark ‘em by name, so ye’s got tae do’t by bloody hand.”

“I see. Can you make more, then?”

“Aye. Lady Hyde left a dev’lish long list, but ye ken add some if ye like. Mark that I’ve nae a great supply o’ te bloody metal, less ye be keen t’ ferret out mair.” She waved him over to her desk, where he uncovered a long list in his sister’s careful handwriting.

“Did she find you here already, or bring you herself?”

“Gerry an’ me were ‘ere afore. Dyson ‘ad a carriage what our pa made, and ‘e bloody broke it, the ass. So we came so’s I could fix the bugger, an’ stayed...” She eyed the Sluagh, who was adding his own careful marks to the list. “Each fer our own bloody reasons. But the carriage, t’was bloody art when it ran… now’t’s gain. Y’r sister says we can ‘ave ‘t back – part paym’nt. We’ll see.”

Seek nodded, piecing this together with what Hide had already told him. “I should let you return to your work.”

“Aye then.” Maggie picked up another plate, and turned back to the sanding belt. Seek winced slightly at the sound, glanced back over his additions to his sister’s list, and slipped out to explore more of the freehold.

 

He sought her out that evening, finding her in the Manor’s cellar, which she had claimed as her own domain for the course of her stay. It was dank and poorly lit, with a lingering scent of mouldering vegetables and rotting leather, and filled with centuries of forgotten bric-a-brac. The setting might have appealed to any of their kith, but there was something in the way that the shadows cast by lamp light seemed reach out covetously to the discarded miscellany that evoked his sister’s essence. True to her name, she could hide from him – and more easily when he was distracted by his quests. Rather than search her out, he set himself to looking through the cellar more carefully. He was growing restless – restless to be done with Dyson’s summons, restless to begin the new work set before him, and always restless to carry out his endless other searchings.

He’d just opened a mouldering chest that was filled with small clothes, for an infant or a doll. What was left of these was fine silk and lace, and some fell to nothing even at his light touch. Someone had folded them carefully and packed them away, and they seemed to carry an air of love and sadness when he touched them, and to sigh as they disintegrated.

“Lord Dyson has acquiesced, my brother. Tomorrow we will proceed, if Miss Fitzgerald has all in readiness.”

“Very well.” He knew she stood behind him at his shoulder even before she reached out to place her hand there.

“I hope you will forgive my use of you.”

Seek looked up then. She was his sister, and she’d tied herself to him long ago. He’d needed her then, but over the long years she’d been drawn more and more into her own schemes. But she was always there, and he knew she still watched out for him, when he was not always able. She found ways to ease his restlessness, to guard him against his fate. Sometimes, though, she needed him instead. It had never been her way to simply ask – an old habit from days when her freedoms had been more constrained, and when she had cared more about such things. Instead she aligned things according to her needs. “I would not deny you. Only I do not see your aim in this.”

Hide sat beside him, nestling herself against the arm of a broken chair, the fabric of her wide skirt rustling quietly. “I remember this place. You were gone then, chasing after dreams and secrets far in the east. I came west instead, and stopped here a while. This land was much smaller then – towns still seemed worlds apart, even for those with more freedom to travel. Back in the oldest time, this place had been a sacred spring, and mortals would leave offerings here for whatever spirits might bless them and care for their crops or flocks or children. Perhaps some desperate soul slept here once, and their dream fed on all those little hopes. But the Sidhe came, and made that power their own. The first hold here was theirs of course, though others came, and came into their power…” She squeezed his shoulder. “You well know their ways.

“It is a tale told a thousand times, for a mortal to be ensnared by their beauty, and so it happened here… I’m sure many times, but it is the last one that has so marked this place. There was a young and very foolish lord here, and he thought he loved a mortal girl in return. You know what I think of such things – Sidhe are too selfish to give true love. But their nature is blinding. ‘We are going away, to a beautiful place,’ he told her, and he described the gates and gardens of Arcadia, and its castles and magic and wonders. ‘And you must have all the most beautiful things,’ he said, ‘to come and stay with me in paradise.’ I know not if he merely lied for his amusement, or if he thought he could bring her, but though he plied her with many noble gifts – gowns and jewels and trinkets and any favour a man might have given a lady then – he left her.

“She thought he would come. She believed his love was as strong as hers, though she was forgotten as soon as they stepped away from this world, I’m sure, and all the things he had promised. She waited. She kept all her finery, wearing her golden dresses trimmed in moonlight until they were rags. When I passed this way, she told me that she waited, that he would come, that she needed all the beautiful things. Her madness had a power to it even then – she would not leave the spring. Her love sustained her. She needed all the pretty things, and the wonders, and he would come, she knew he would come.”

Hide fell silent, though she did not take her hand from her brother’s shoulder. The thoughts and memories her story conjured for him felt fresh even after so many years, so much thwarted wandering. His frame carried the tension poorly, and he tried to expel it with a frustrated sigh. “This gives no answer, unless you mean to say you pitied her.”

“You know I did, brother. She died, of course, but her dream of longing haunts this place, and that is why they feed it treasures. I doubt they know the tale. But she keeps them still, I’m sure, and hoards all the pretty things for when he comes for her. When I passed through… I gave her the mirror. I knew she would keep it, and it would be lost to the world.”

“And now you have some use for it again.”

“I have been waiting for the place to be reawakened. Now all is ready.”

“Almost,” Seek answered, looking up to her. Hide nodded.

 

Maggie had everything ready by the next afternoon. Moving the loom out to the base of the hill was a delicate task, and the assistants she cajoled found their vocabularies rather unwillingly expanded. Gerry, who had heard it all before, from his sister and their father, was the only one allowed to help her set up the more delicate instruments. Dyson lounged on a blanket nearby, observing grumpily, while Miss Hyde and her brother whispered quietly to each other a few feet away. Will had stopped by but, fearing impressment, had left to ‘distract the Boggans with the exciting country news, so as you can get on with this business without them nosing about.’ Once Maggie had finished her calibrations, she pointed to a closed chest sitting on the ground and addressed the Sluagh with a glare. “’S all bloody set for ye. The plates ‘re in te chest – ye damn well ken I what I said about testin’, so I leave ye to’t.”

“Miss Fitzgerald.” Miss Hyde bowed. “I have every confidence that your loom will perform as required.” As she turned to address the others, Mr. Seeger began to carefully load the irregularly drilled plates into the slats in the machine, threading them through with glamoured spider silk from the bobbin the Nocker had provided. “As you know, this machine was built to weave a dream. Like the cloth produced throughout Lancashire, this dream will require further tailoring to become something with which anyone can engage. My brother’s travels make him well suited to such a role. My brother’s nature also suites him to the recovery of lost things, and this place has suffered much on that account. I have made you all promises, and I think we shall find I am able to keep them.”

Nodding, she went to help finish the arrangements, making sure the threads pulled evenly across the focusing crystal, and that the take-up for the woven dream was properly adjusted and tensioned. Gerry had seated himself with Dyson, and Maggie sat a little space apart, frowning in anticipation of some disaster. Miss Hyde started the crank that set it all in motion, and after a few full turns it gathered its own momentum. The shuttle flew across the warp threads, faster and faster, so that soon it could not be seen at all. A shimmering tapestry was forming, cranked out on the far side of the loom. Mr. Seeger reached out to touch it, to guide it or perhaps simply to marvel, and disappeared instantly.

“Fuckin’ Hell!” Maggie and Dyson immediately jumped to their feet, and even Miss Hyde seemed alarmed, turning her attention to the Nocker. “Bloody dream! ‘E should be able tae control’t from without… Bloody damn Hell ‘n te Dev’l!” She raced to the machine but hesitated.

“Should we gae after ‘im?” Gerry had his hand on Dyson’s arm, holding him back for now, but looked to the other Sluagh.

She moved up to the machine, hesitating only a moment before answering, “No. If anyone can find their way out, he can. We would be a hindrance, and more likely to lose ourselves.”

They all clustered around then, looking down at the fabric of the dream taking shape on the loom. There were some quiet gasps, and shared looks, but no one spoke to point out the obvious: there were shapes in the shimmering, and as they all looked on, they became more ordered, and the rolling of the loom seemed to give them motion, as though they were watching animated figures scroll along in front of them. A figure approached a hill not unlike the one where they all stood. As he approached, they could tell it was a man, robed in a short gown of grey trimmed with vair, over dark hose. His hair was black and hung to his shoulders. He knelt, and a spring began to flow across the landscape, filling in a small pool and swirling into the borders of the fabric. The others turned their eyes briefly to Miss Hyde, and Dyson voiced the question for the rest.

“Is that him?”

Miss Hyde just nodded, not looking up from the image of her brother and the dream unfolding around him. He reached out into the water of the spring and drew something forth – a mirror. He lifted it as though to gaze into it, and a writhing black-shadowed mass appeared behind him.

 

Something in the dream had called to him – it was instinct, not thought, that had caused him to reach out and touch it, and it was no surprise to find himself drawn inside. He knew the elements of the dream, but couldn’t sense any order to them, until he pulled them together, focusing on the spring, which welled up before him. The mirror called to him immediately, and he could see other treasures lying as if in offering below the surface. For now he concentrated on his object, drawing it from its place of rest. It was made of polished silver, with etched knotwork designs along the handle. His own changed reflection did not surprise him, but he stood and turned when the mirror showed something more ominous.

It was surely a trick of the dream that the shadows resolved themselves into a black-haired girl just as he laid his eyes on them. Her gown was a shimmering gold, not unlike the weave of the dream fabric he’d entered. She balled her fists, beautiful features twisted by wild anger.

“THIEF!” she cried. “That is not for you! They are mine, my beautiful things, my gifts, for Gentian, and you cannot have them.”

Seek bowed low, presenting it to her though it pained him to part with it. “Of course, my lady,” he whispered, “you will have need of it.”

“I will! Oh I will…” She clutched it to her, and tears fell from her clear blue eyes. She sank to her knees, and a ring of small blue flowers unfurled their blossoms around her. “When he comes for me, he will see how I have treasured all he gave me, how I have kept all to be worthy of paradise. No…” She looked up at the Sluagh. “To be worthy of his love. Who are you? Are you a thief? If you are I shall drown you, and count your skull as one of my treasures.”

“I am no thief, lady. I am called Seek, and I have been sent to find you.”

“I am called Imagnie – it is my name, and so I am called that, and it sounded like poetry on his lips.” She closed her eyes in remembrance, smiling, picking one of the flowers. “What is your name, Seek?”

“If I tell you, you must come with me, my lady.”

“I must wait for Gentian! He will come, because he loves me, he said so often, and he never would lie, he is my prince! I love him too, of course, for who could not? He was more beautiful than anyone in the word – unlike you. I find you very ugly, sir, and very strange.”

“Gentian cannot come, my lady. But I can bring you to him.”

“You are a thief, I knew it, and a liar too! He promised he would take me away with him, and I must believe, and I must make ready. I take such care of the treasures – when he comes he will emerge from the pool in a radiant light, for he lives beneath. He has taken me to his hall, and I have seen how it shines with beauty. He gave me wine so sweet I thought I must have been already in paradise, and then he smiled at me. He told me he loved me then, and a hundred other times. The sound of his name is like music, will you say it? Oh but you are too quiet, you could not call him forth. Gentian, when will you come?” As she chattered, her countenance shifted easily between anger, devotion, and great despair.

“Cry no more, lady Imagnie. Gentian waits for you in Paradise, you must gather all your good gifts and come with me.”

“Lies and lies! But, oh, how beautiful his name sounds even in your whispers. Has he sent you? Tell me of him. Does he miss me?”

“Terribly, as he must, lady. He waits for you beyond the gates.”

“The gates! I have seen them in my dreams, they shine, all in gold and glittering, like nothing I have ever seen while waking. I know he waits beyond them. But Gentian must come for me! He promised. Does he not love me?”

“Lady you must go to him. I can take you to him, to the gates, so you may pass beyond. I have been there, seen their shimmering light… They seem to sing, to call your name as you approach – have you heard them? Their grandeur is only an echo of the wonders that lie beyond.”

“Oh the singing! They promise me Gentian, they tell me he is within… But he loves me – he must come out.”

“Lady, he cannot. The gates will not open for him. You must come with me.”

Imagnie tore at her hair, falling onto the ground before the spring weeping. “Oh he cannot, oh my love!” Seek sat down beside her, waiting until her fit had passed. After a time she reached out to the spring but did not touch it, and gazed between her reflection there and in the one in the mirror. “Am I still beautiful? How can I stand before the gates?”

“In all your finery, lady, you will stand before them, and they will open for you.”

“Fetch then my jewels, Seek. He once gave me diamonds that were the tears of the moon, and set them in a net for my hair. If you can draw them for me I will know that you speak no lies, and I will take your name and gather my treasures and I will pass through the shining gates to join my love in paradise.”

Seek already felt stretched thin, with Dyson’s summons left unresolved, and his sister’s requests. He’d been the one to first speak of the gates, but they’d been in his mind since his sister had told him Imagnie’s tale. There was no weaving plate for the hair net, not one for the gates…. But this was a dream, even if it was a created one. He hoped there would be sufficient flexibility. The treasures, if she weren’t mad or lying, should account for themselves. He closed his eyes, focused his intent, and let the pull guide him as he leaned over the pool and reached in.

The water seemed colder than when he’d picked up the mirror, and deeper. He could feel the diamonds, but not reach them although his whole arm was now submerged. His fingers brushed something that shifted of its own accord, and he kept his eyes closed, knowing that nightmares pressed in around him. Imagnie’s first form was not forgotten, and he knew how her madness had poisoned the glamour of this place. Other powers had more compelling claims on him than her shadows, though, and he knew he was stronger than her. He called out in summoning, and something cut at his fingers before he closed them around his object. As he opened his eyes, the water swirled briefly red and black, though this too was gone in a blink. A look of awe passed across Imagnie’s face as he passed her the sparkling hair net – white lines like scars crossed his fingers where he held it.

“Oh I must go! I see now. He sent you to fetch me, because he cannot come, but he still does love me. And how long? And so strong our love. I waited so long, so many years. So many beautiful magics, and I thought it might never be enough!” She threw her arms around him, catching him by surprise. Her body was as cold as death, and despite everything this surprised him. Her tears on his shoulder felt like ice. “You must help me, you must, and we will go to the gates, as you say, and we will go through…”

“I cannot go through, lady.” Imagnie pulled back some, gripping his shoulders tightly. Seek sat very still, wary. “I have no gifts.”

“Gifts… for Gentian?”

“For another, my lady. She will not have me.”

“Do you not love her?”

Dreams, he know, had their own rules, and he was skilled at intuiting them. Here he was not sure how to answer, and what all he should or dared tell. Imagnie still held him in her frigid embrace, but for all her madness, he couldn’t deny he felt a certain sympathy. He took her hands in his. “She told me I must look for her always, and then she took herself away, beyond the gates.” Imagnie stared at him in puzzlement for a moment before sorrow crossed her features. She made to embrace him again, but he stopped her. “Will you go to your Gentian?”

“I must.”

They stood ready by a carriage harnessed to a lone white horse – a well-muscled, deep-chested, chimerical charger with flowing silvered mane and tail that stood proud and ready. Poesy had been one of his early gifts, she told him, along with a hawk she’d had no skill with. The elegant carriage was a more modern contrivance, though Imagnie seemed to think nothing of this or the dozens of other anachronistic treasures she’d acquired over the long centuries. They were her gifts, or her dowry, depending on her thoughts in the moment. They were a price, or a bribe, or an offering. She needed them to pass the gates.

The carriage was piled high with other treasures. Imagnie was even more resplendent, her hair bound and jewels adorning her wrists and fingers and throat. She wore also a crown of blue flowers like the ones that rose from her tears. Seek helped her in to the carriage, stepping up top to drive himself, but she stopped him.

“You still must give me your name, if I am to go with you.”

“Elerius,” he whispered, and she nodded, and they were off. They passed through a hundred landscapes, as Seek let the disorder of the dream elements pass around them – he saw the manor, and great hillsides, they passed through clouds of rose-scented smoke and across a trail of stars, across a raging river that screamed and lashed at them with great white waves as they rode over a tall bridge of copper filigree. At one point they were harried by the baying of some terrible hound he never caught sight of. He remembered the plate that had surely spawned them – dogs, after those that Will kept for hunting. There were other elements he thought he could trace to their origin in this way, and he marvelled at how the dream took them and made them its own.

No matter how many years slipped past him, Seek could never forget his one sight of the gates of Arcadia, forever barred. They were beautiful, blinding, and terrible. He’d known real despair then. They were unassailable, and he had no power to command them to open. He called forth their memory and gave it to the dream, letting it weave its gossamer threads through his mind and hoping that it would answer his need. Even in this false paradise they pulled at him, across field and forest and fantasy. When he caught their gleam in the distance, he urged Poesy onward more quickly.

It should have been harder, he felt, but there was no challenge this time. Perhaps the dream lacked power – he’d seen nothing with its own will other than Imagnie, and she was no more a creation of this dream than he or the treasures packed into the carriage, having rather been called there by the conditions they’d established. He wondered if it was another fault of the machine, or if her ghostliness warded off all life.

He pulled up before them, and found that even knowing their lie he could not look at them directly. He opened the carriage door for Imagnie and bowed as she stepped out and marvelled.

“They are just as I’d dreamed them. Have ever such wonders been seen in the world? And these only the gates – what must paradise be like, when I am joined to my love?”

“Soon you shall see, my lady.”

“Oh yes! Soon and never soon enough. You must carry my things.”

“I cannot, my lady.”

Imagnie looked to the carriage piled high with pilfered treasures and back to Seek. “But I must have my gifts! To pass the gates!”

“My lady, does Gentian love you?”

“He loves me, he has said so. We will go to paradise and be together forever….” She looked from the carriage to the tall gates. “They will open for our eternal love.” She turned towards them, and it made his heart break to see them open, and for her to pass through, and see them close again.

 

The others watched the story unfold silently, the weaving providing occasionally some text to interpret the actions it showed. They caught their breaths as the blackness pressed about while he searched in the pool – they saw the water run red, though Seek had not. They saw the hounds that bayed, the angry face of the river, the hungry dangers lurking off the road through the forests. When the pair in the dream came to the shining gates, they marveled along with Imagnie, thinking of the dreams that had troubled them when Seek first arrived.

But they saw what lay beyond – the ruins, the dead and dust, the rats and spiders that claimed and covered all with their nests and webs. It was a troubling vision, though they knew even Seek could not know what lay beyond the true gates… if they were ever more than a dream. They saw Imagnie pass through, and fall to her knees as she faced her paradise. There was no Gentian, only bones and hopelessness; nightmares and terror for a lost girl who had done bad things. She screamed, a howl of rage and despair and loss. She screamed it all out, until there was nothing of her left.

The gates vanished with her, but the machine continued to build its dream. The small figure that represented Seek was back in the carriage now, and it appeared to move along a winding road marked with more shifting landscapes drawn from the programmed elements. Maggie named those she recognized as they appeared, and Miss Hyde identified some others.

“Where’s he gain?” Gerry asked. The day had grown long as they’d watched, and they could not guess at how time passed within the weaving, and whether there were more details to the encounters they witnessed. Sometimes the carriage seemed smaller and further away, and sometimes larger. “Can’t we fetch ‘im out?”

“He is coming back here,” Miss Hyde whispered. “He must complete his quests.”

“Must ‘e do’t alaine?”

“Surely there is some assistance we can lend,” Dyson added more firmly, turning his gaze on the Sluagh.

“He is still bound to you,” she replied.

The Satyr nodded, and the others looked on with curiosity. “How might I call him back?”

“You know the words.”

“Is it the same? Then very well.” He leaned over the tapestry, as though proximity would make his message clearer, and cleared his throat.  
“Wanderer in the lost ways, come!  
I call you by the binding words  
I invoke the name of lady Nicaysia  
I summon you to this quest  
Come and search for me.”

The tapestry flickered as he pronounced the invocation, and the figure in the carriage seemed to quickly grow larger. The perspective shifted as well, and instead of travelling along the length of the fabric, the figures moved instead towards the viewers. Maggie swore as she guessed the outcome, and Miss Hyde was already stepping back. Dyson seemed transfixed even as the features of the horse began to overshadow those of the driver as it came forward. The weaving machine kept at its work, though the image was now more of a projection, and Gerry once again took his lord by the arm and drew him back to safety. Poesy did emerge first- seeming even more impossibly resplendent as his hooves crashed down into the loom’s framework. The carriage sat on the ruins of Maggie’s work, and she swore again – uncertain in that moment whether the recovery of one of her father’s masterpieces was worth the destruction of her own. Seek stared at Dyson as he reined in his mount, the wild look back in his eyes. He was dressed as he had been in the dream, and the garb made him seem all the more displaced and strange. The strength of the glamour in him was so strong in that brief moment that those who had seen it felt a shiver of fear, as though they’d had a glimpse of what he might have been before the world had forced their kind to adapt to its hardships and take up mortal seemings.

“Brother.” Miss Hyde whispered sharply, so that he turned to face her. “Do you have it?”

He looked from her to Dyson, then to the Fitzgeralds, and back. Slowly, he slipped down from the driver’s perch and tossed the reigns to Gerry who was trying to calm the horse. “I have… everything.” There was a grey bag hanging from his belt, and from it he drew the dice and held them out to the Satyr. “And so… I am paid, and released from you.”

Dyson took them, a grave and awed expression on his face as he regarded all that was now before him: the Sluagh, the treasures, the stallion of pure Fae pedigree. Thoughts of new breeding programs filled his thoughts even as his hand closed tightly around his prized dice. “You have my thanks – and my hospitality always.”

Next Seek produced the mirror, passing it carefully to his sister. “You know what I will ask.”

She waved to the cloth, where it lay in the ruins. It no longer shimmered, but had faded to a silvery grey with fine embroidery depicting scenes of the dreaming it had contained. “It is yours.”

Finally, he turned to Maggie, who had turned to help her brother unhitch the horse, and was muttering in quiet anxiety at the carriage and the mess of her machine. “I am sorry, Miss Fitzgerald – but such a thing could not stand.”

“Damn ye to Hell!” She glared at him, but did not argue.

“I think you will find yourself well paid.”

“Paid! Me genius wasted on ye bloody lot fer a pile o’ damned trinkets pulled frae a pond!” Gerry had Poesy in hand now, and drew him away from the wreckage and his storming sister. Maggie stooped to pick up a few of the plates – some were mangled, and others had a burnt or tarnished look to them. The purple gem had been dashed to pieces.

“And your father’s carriage.”

“An’ te damned carriage!” She waved a plate at him, scowling with shining eyes. “I ken how it must be! I bloody saw all tha’ happen’d, but there be nae reason I canna be bloody damned mad!”

He accepted this with a nod, and Gerry passed the horse off to Dyson and took his sister in hand instead, disarming her of the hunk of metal she wielded, and whispering as quietly as the Sluagh. “Ach, Meg, ye ken all is nae lost, ye can build some better thing wi’ all this…”

With the carriage cleared out of the way, the Sluagh bent to pick up the discarded roll of fabric. Between the two of them, they managed to disentangle and fold it. Miss Hyde performed the final trick of this, folding it back on itself until the mass shrank to a size that Seek could carry easily, and he slipped it inside his bag. The Fitzgeralds looked to themselves, and Dyson continued to marvel over Poesy, assessing his many fine qualities. “And paid again.”

His sister hissed. “Stay, brother. I will give you some new quest.” He shook his head, and she scowled. “You do not wish it, do you.”

“You know I cannot.”

“I know you will not try. You have no care for yourself at all.”

Seek took his sister’s hands, but his eyes were still full of the shining gates. “I have you for that, sister - to keep me anchored. For now, the pull is too strong.”

Hide embraced him a moment, and let him go. “If you wander too long, I will call you back.”

“Always,” he acknowledged, and turned away again from the world.


End file.
